Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, May 26, 1994 TAG: 9405260025
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SCOTT BLANCHARD STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: CLEMSON, S.C. LENGTH: Medium
Charlie Gillian likes reading thrillers, but don't assume he hates hairy plots when he trades a book for a baseball.
Gillian is Virginia Tech's closer, and he hopes to get on the mound today when the Hokies face Auburn in their NCAA Tournament East Regional opener (3 p.m., WSLC 610 AM).
If Tech coach Chuck Hartman calls on Gillian - as he has done a school-record 29 times this year - the redshirt freshman right-hander from Beckley, W.Va., won't care what the situation is.
"In high school, I'd hate playing the field because I couldn't get on the mound and do something about [the game]," Gillian said after Tech's workout Wednesday at Clemson University's Tiger Field. "Now, I've got the chance when the game's on the line. I'd hate to be one of the guys in the dugout watching somebody else do the job."
Gillian has completed his assignment 12 times this year, and on Wednesday he was named the first-team reliever on the Mizuno Freshman All-America team, chosen by Collegiate Baseball magazine.
The 12 saves are a Tech freshman record and one short of the school's single-season mark held by Orvin Kiser (1976) and Joe Salisbury (1985).
Gillian botched only his first outing (giving up the tying run in the ninth) and a midseason game against East Regional participant Old Dominion (with a runner on third, he threw a change-up behind the batter).
Gillian recounts those games with an "Oh, my God," and a roll of the eyes. But since the fall, he's been mostly divine for the Hokies, surprise winners of the Metro Conference tournament and its automatic bid to the 48-team NCAA Tournament that begins today at eight sites.
Recently, Hartman was listing Tech's secrets in its late-season surge, and sifted down to a shrug and a statement: "We've got a closer."
Tech (32-24) could've had Gillian last year, too, but cut him in a preseason walk-on tryout. Gillian had attended Hartman's summer camps twice before enrolling at Tech, but even familiarity didn't help. Gillian, who tried throwing overhand and sidearm, admits he wasn't sharp.
He went back to studying civil engineering, a field in which he has four summers of experience as a soil-testing lab technician for a firm in Beckley.
But Gillian still wanted to learn about that dirt in the middle of a diamond.
So the National Honor Society member, who turned down his only scholarship offer out of high school (to West Virginia State), returned in the fall for another try an inch taller (at 6 foot 2) and 30 pounds heavier (at 200).
Gillian missed the first day of tryouts when he lost his physical examination forms. Then, he saw fellow walk-on Steve Schulze throwing 87 mph and rolled his eyes heavenward.
But he threw well, and on the last day of tryouts Tech's coaches told him they were going to make him a full-time sidearmer because the motion gave more movement to otherwise flat pitches.
Not many pitchers throw both ways to begin with, Gillian admits.
"I just did it in high school, to give the batter a different look - try to get a couple cheap outs," he said.
If he gets a save today, it won't be a cheap one. Auburn, an at-large NCAA team from the Southeastern Conference, is 40-19 and making its second consecutive NCAA appearance. Tenth-year Tigers coach Hal Baird (a Petersburg, Va., native who was a high school teammate of former Tech star Johnny Oates) will start all-time NCAA strikeouts leader John Powell (3-3, 2.47 ERA) against the Hokies today.
If Tech wins in its first NCAA game since 1977, it plays the Old Dominion-Notre Dame winner at 7:30 p.m. Friday; if the Hokies lose, they play the loser of the game between top-ranked Clemson and The Citadel at 11 a.m. Friday to avoid elimination.
If Gillian appears today, it probably will mean Tech left-hander Brian Fitzgerald (9-4, 3.69) has at least kept it close against split-finger specialist Powell, who apparently has completely recovered from a hyperextended right elbow suffered in his season debut.
Fitzgerald was the Metro tournament's most valuable player, and in his past three starts is 2-1 with a 2.76 ERA and 21 hits allowed in 23 innings.
Hartman, however, won't burn brain cells wondering whether to use Gillian. Tech's 15th-year coach brought in Gillian after Salem left-hander Rob Gibson, throwing a one-hitter in the Metro tournament, got out a left-handed hitter to start the ninth.
Gillian got the last two outs.
And Hartman sent in Gillian for Fitzgerald in the Metro title game after the starter had retired 13 of 15 batters. Gillian got the save.
"I had a lot of people second-guessing me down in the [Metro] tournament," Hartman said of that move. "I have confidence in him."
by CNB